By Bryan Kiel
The Fordham Indoor Track team was up in Boston this past weekend competing in the Terrier Classic, hosted by Boston University. The meet was saturated with teams from throughout the East Coast, with club and college teams from Maine to Virginia. Fordham stayed strong against the tough competition, featuring a number of ECAC/IC4A qualifications, career-best times and broken school records.
The women’s team started the meet on Friday, Jan. 30, and senior captain Titi Fagade continued her dominance indoors with a second-place finish in the 800m. Fagade’s time of 2:06.56 broke her previous school record set last year, and was briefly the fifth best time in the country.
“I was really surprised by how fast I went,” Fagade said. “I was ranked fifth in the NCAA briefly, but that changes every week as people run faster. For this meet though, I’m proud of my performance.”
Senior Melissa Higgins also placed well in the 800m, posting a time of 2:15.09 for 18th place. Senior captain Kristen Stuart and junior Danielle Rowe both recorded career-best times and ECAC qualifications in the 500m, with times of 1:14.78 and 1:15.05, good for fifth and seventh overall.
Joining Stuart and Rowe in the top 10 was freshman Merissa Wright, who took 10th with a time of 1:16.18. Senior Mara Lieberman was qualified for the ECAC championships in March with a time of 2:55.74 in the 1000m run, good for 16th place in competition. Senior Brianna Tevnan, coming off a breakout cross country season, started her indoor campaign with a career-best time of 10:07.19 in the 3000m, slashing her previous time of 11:51.85.
The relay teams had great days as well for the women. The 4×400 team, a senior-freshman crew made up of Fagade, Higgins, Wright and freshman Jennifer Boerke, was the final ECAC qualifier of the day, coming in fifth in competition with a time of 3:47.66. The distance medley relay team, consisting of Boerke, Lieberman, Higgins and Tevnan, competed on Saturday, finishing third overall with a time of 12:01.61.
“The goal of the 4×4 was to qualify for ECAC and we did that, and were just shy of a school record,” said Fagade. “Overall, it was an excellent day for the women’s team. We ran some great times that placed us in a good spot for our conference meet in a couple of weeks.”
The men’s team competed on Saturday, and started again with a IC4A qualifying time and school record. Senior captain Lester Taylor, a native of the Bahamas, started the day in the 800m, coming in fifth overall with a time of 1:50.64. This broke former Ram Brian Schmidt’s 2011 record by three-tenths of a second, and is also a Bahamian national indoor record. Joining Taylor as IC4A qualifiers were senior Jon Annelli and junior Quincy O’Connor. Annelli finished ninth in the 1000m run with a time of 2:26.91, while O’Connor finished 16th in the 5000m run with a time of 14:35.80.
The meet also featured strong performances from many other Rams. Senior captain Dan Green joined Annelli in the 1000m with a time of 2:33.92, and freshman Louis Santelli ran in the 800m with Taylor, finishing in a time of 1:55.68.
A number of other freshmen had great days, like Thomas Slattery, who ran a 4:15.09 in the mile. Fellow freshman Brian Cook also joined Slattery in the mile, finishing in a time of 4:20.12. Cook returns to competition for Fordham after a great cross country season, cut short by bouts of illness and injury. Junior Mike Turi, freshman Nik O’Brien, and sophomore Ryan McGann ran in the 3000m run, with times of 8:28.66, 8:31.96 and 8:51.22, respectively.
“Everyone that ran had good races,” said Green. “We are ready to run fast on Friday and I think we’re gonna have a great showing at Mets.”
Fordham will continue its strong indoor season this weekend as it competes at the Metropolitan Championship at The Armory.
